The Emmys and Other Awards Should Eliminate Gender Divisions, and Here’s How to Do It (Column)

I have penned three open letters addressing gendered acting categories at awards shows and therefore have been graciously asked to comment on both the gendered acting categories at the Emmys and the non-gendered acting categories at the Television Critics Awards (TCA’s).

In one of my letters I addressed the fact that I have previously allowed myself to be submitted for Emmy nominations in the Supporting Actor category and I have previously accepted Critic’s Choice nominations in the Supporting Actor category: “I was told that Emmy rules state that any performer can enter either category for any reason. Since the word actor (late 14c.) is a gender-neutral word meaning ‘theatrical player, to do, to perform,’ and is the word I’ve always used to refer to myself, I asked to be submitted under Supporting Actor. When the Critic’s Choice Awards later took it upon themselves to nominate me within the Supporting Actor category, I felt respected in my identity. I now recognize, however, that being submitted or nominated within categories that reinforce the gender-binary should have been met with my outright rejection of those nominations, alongside calling for change.”

The Actress and Actor categories have never held space for non-binary performers and allowing non-binary performers to be submitted in either the Actress or Actor category erases the sexist history which birthed the Actress category at awards shows, and the context within which those words were, and still are, being used: in the context of awards shows (e,g,, the Academy Awards, the Emmys, the Golden Globes…) the words Actress and Actor are synonymous with woman and man.

There are, ultimately, two tangible obstacles to abolishing the Actress category at awards shows and they are – to be blunt – money and feelings.

To the first obstacle: The argument has been made that combining gendered acting awards would inherently mean less nominees, and therefore less winners, which in turn would mean less money for the people who produce awards shows; every time a studio or network submits a nominee that studio or network pays the awards show a fee. I offer that combining gendered acting categories does not necessarily mean less nominees. At the Emmy Awards, for example, there would be ten nominees in one category instead of five nominees in two categories. I propose in this case the possibility for more than one winner to be decided by rank choice voting. It’s worth noting the Academy Awards increased the number of nominees in the Best Picture category from five in 2008 to ten in 2009 and has fluctuated from eight to ten for the last decade.

To the second obstacle: feelings i.e. the fear that abolishing the Actress category at awards shows inherently leads to only non-trans men being nominated. I understand this knee-jerk reaction, but as Michael Schneider points out in his 2019 piece, “It’s Time for the Emmys to Eliminate Gender-Specific Acting Categories,” “Early concerns about combining the actor and actress categories focused on whether women might be shut out. But if this year’s MTV and TCA nominations are any indication, it’s women who are dominating the competition (perhaps giving male actors some pause).”

I challenge every awards show that still has gendered acting categories to be bold and face the sexist truth of why the Actress category exists at awards shows in the first place. The argument that the Actress category was created to champion womxn (trans and non trans alike) is a fiction, too long believed, rooted in sexism. The Actress category at awards shows was, in fact, a way to help keep womxn out of prominent behind-the-camera roles, i.e. director and cinematographer, certainly keeping womxn out of being subsequently nominated and awarded for those roles. It wasn’t until 1977, fifty years after the first Academy Awards that Lina Wertmüller, a non-trans woman, was nominated for Best Director. It wasn’t until 2018, ninety years after the first Academy Awards, that Rachel Morrison, a non-trans woman, was nominated for Best Cinematographer. The Academy Awards didn’t create Best Directoress or Best Cinematographers categories because they didn’t want to. Hollywood was not interested in equality and the message was clear: the only place non-trans women (predominantly white non-trans women) were allowed to receive recognition at awards shows would be for being in front of the camera as Actresses. Recognition in all other categories – as we know – would take decades, be hard won, and ultimately remains inequitable.

Awards shows must immediately abolish gender distinctions in acting categories as a way of reckoning with the discriminatory policy of separating performers based on gender and with the sexist history of Hollywood which told non-trans women their only place was on-camera, and told non-binary people there was no place for them in Hollywood at all.

We have examples of awards shows that have abolished, or never had, gendered acting categories: the MTV Movie Awards, the Daytime Emmys (in their youth category), and the TCA’s to name a few. I applaud these awards shows for their gender-neutral acting categories while noting that those categories have only ever included (to the best of my knowledge) non-trans nominees. Who selects the nominees and who votes at any awards show must be a heavily scrutinized and transparent process in order to guarantee recognition of a much broader swath of work created by non-binary and trans folx, especially Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.

I submit that we should be more afraid of upholding a discriminatory, sexist policy than we are of abolishing it. As James Baldwin said, “There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.”